The Brookhaven leader., 1887-11-17

lne ulSpOSltlOn their ,futme occupation.
! Do not write down that child as dull be-
cause it may not now be as brilliant as
/ your other children or as those of your
neighbor. Some of the mightiest men
and women of the centuries had stupid
childhood. Thomas Aquinas was called
at school 1.-The dumb OK" but afterward
demonstrated his sanctified genius and
was called ''the angel Of the schools
and 1.-The eagle of Brittany" Kindness
and patience with child will conquer
almost anything, and they are virtues so
/ Christianlike that they are inspiring to
look at. John Wesley's kiss of a child
! on the pulpit stairs turned Matthias Joyce
from profligate into flaming evangel.
The third error prevalent in the train
ing of children is the one sided develop
ment of either the physical, intellectual
or moral nature at the expense of the
others. Those, for instance, greatly mis-
take who, while they are faithful in the
intellectual and moral culture of chill
| dren, forget the physical. The bright
eyes half quenched by night study, the
cramped chest that comes from too much
bending over school desks, the weak side
resulting from sedentariness of habit,
pale cheeks and the gaunt bodies of null
| titudes of children attest that physical
development does not always go along
with intellectual and moral. How do
you suppose all those treasures of knowl-
edge the child gets will look in shattered
casket? And how much will you give
for the wealthiest cargo when it is put
into leaky ship? How can that bright,
sharp blade of a child's attainments be
welded without any handle? What are
brains worth without shoulders to
carry them? What is a child with mag
nificent mind but an exhausted body?
| Better that a young man of 81 go forth
into the world without knowing A from
| z, if he have health of body and energy
to push his way through the world, than
at 21 to enter upon active life, his head
stuffed with Socrates, and Herodotus,
and Bacon, and La Place, but no physi-
cal force to sustain him in the shock of
earthly conflicts. From this infinite
blunder Of parents how many have come
out in life with genius that could have
piled Ossa upon Pelion, and mounted
upon them to scale the heavens, and have
laid down painting with physical exhaus-
ton before mole hill. They who might
have thrilled senates and marshaled
armies and startled the world with the
shock of their scientific batteries, have
| passed their lives in picking up prescrip-
tions for Indigestion. They owned all
the thunderbolts of Jupiter, but could not
get out of their rocking chair to use
them. George Washington in early life
was a poor speller. and spelled hat
h-a-double-t, and a ream of paper he
spelled "rheam," but he knew enough
to spell out the independence of this
country from foreign oppression. The
knowledge of the schools is important,
but there are other things quite as i'm
portant.
Just as great is the wrong done when
the mind is cultivated and the heart neg
lected. The youth of this day are seldom
denied any scholarly attainments. Our
schools and seminaries are ever growing
in efficiency, and the students are con-
Quoted through all the realms of philos-
ophy, and art, and language, and mathe-
mates. The most hereditary obtuseness
gives way before the onslaught of adroit
instructors. But there is development
of infinite importance which mathematics
and the dead languages cannot affect.
The more mental power the more capac-
ity for evil unless coupled with religious
restraint. You discover what terrible
power for evil unsanctified genius pos
sesses when you see Scaliger with his
scathing denunciations assaulting the
best men of his time, and Blount
and Spinoza and Bolingbroke leading
their hosts of followers into the all
of cly o,,I inf
deity. Whether knowledge is mighty
good or an unmitigated evil depends
entirely upon which course it takes.
The river rolling on between round
banks makes all the valley laugh
with golden wheat and rank grass, and
catching hold the wheel of mill and fac
tory, whirls it with great industries.
But, breaking away from restraints and
dashing over banks in red wrath, it
washes away harvests from their moor
ings and makes the valleys shrink with
the catastrophe. Fire in the furnace
heats the house or drives the steamer;
but, uncontrolled, warehouses go down
in awful crash before it, and in a few
hours half city will lie in black ruin,
walls and towers and churches and
monument. You must accompany the
education of the intellect with the educa-
ton of the heart, or you are rousing up
within your child an energy which will
be blasting and terrific. Better wicked
Ounce than wicked philosopher.
The fourth error often committed in
the training of children is the suppress
sion of childish sportfulness. The most
triumphant death of any child that I
ever knew was that of Scoville Haynes
McCollum. A few days before that, he
was at my house in Syracuse, and he ran
like deer and his halloo made the
woods echo. You could near him COM
ing block off, so full was he of romp
and laughter and whistle. Don't put re-
ligion ON your child as straight jacket.
Parents after having for a good many
years been jostled about in the rough
world often lose their vivacity, and are
astonished to see how their children can
act so thoughtlessly of the earnest world
all about them. That is cruel parent
who quenches any of the light in child's
soul. Instead of arresting its sportfulness,
go forth and help him trundle the hoop,
and fly the kite, and build the snow cas-
tie. Those shoulders are too little to
carry burden, that brow is too young
to be wrinkled, those feet are too spright-
ly to go along at funeral pace God
bless their young hearts! Now is the
time for them to be sportful. Let them
romp and sing and laugh, and go with a
rush and hurrah. In this way they
gather up surplus of energy for future
life For the child that walks aroilnd